How to own your career growth and become a powerful product leader | Deb Liu, Ancestry (ex-Facebook, PayPal)

Do you put as much time into your career planning as you do into your product planning? Deb Liu has had an extraordinary career path, from Ebay and PayPal, to Facebook, and now Ancestry. She’s sat in on, mentored, and managed hundreds of product managers. In this episode, she shares poignant advice on how to intentionally find growth opportunities and drive your career forward. Join us.

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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Flatfile: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny

• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/

• Makelog: https://www.makelog.com/lenny

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Where to find Deb Liu:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/debliu_

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahliu/

• Substack: https://debliu.substack.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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Referenced:

• Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work (Deb’s Book): https://www.amazon.com/Take-Back-Your-Power-Rules/dp/031036485X

• How To Change Your Life Through Resolutions: https://debliu.substack.com/p/resolve-to-progress

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In this episode, we cover:

[04:32] What it was like when eBay acquired PayPal

[07:31] Quirky culture clashes as the companies merged

[09:46] How incentives drive employee behavior

[14:43] How Deb took on a product management role at a young age

[17:51] PayPal’s hiring strategy for early growth

[20:03] How to succeed as an introverted leader

[25:29] What sets successful Product Managers apart from one’s who plateau

[27:09] Specific tactics for unlocking growth in your Product Management career

[32:06] How to find and create mentorship circles

[36:30] The most important skill for early Product Managers to focus on

[43:58] How to grow your confidence in communication

[46:55] Deb’s upcoming book "Take Back Your Power"

[50:35] One tactical tip from Deb’s upcoming book on how to improve your Product Management

[52:09] How to get involved with Women In Product

[57:11] How companies can recruit more diverse Product Managers

[1:00:04] How Deb built Facebook marketplace from scratch

[1:06:03] The blessing and curse of gaining a lot of users quickly

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